Very little research – if any – has been done to find out what happens to leadership and working live when Chinese companies settle in Denmark. This paper argues that it is worth investigating this topic, as I assume that the numbers of Chinese companies locating themselves in Denmark will increase in the coming years. The aim of the paper is firstly to give an overview of the literature that deals with the development of Chinese companies going abroad, and it is shown that the direct outward investments of China is experiencing a rapid growth. Secondly I like to look at leadership and working lives in China, and the lesson learned from the literature is that leadership and working life in China is diverse and continuously evolving. But some trends may be identified like different institutional regimes and different types of companies. Thirdly I look at leadership and working life in Denmark, and I compare leadership and working life in the two countries showing that there are many differences. These differences may have an impact on the way Chinese companies handle their encounters with ‘strangers’ when they establish themselves abroad, but we do not know if this is happening. I conclude by outlining a way of how to empirically study the interaction between Chinese and Danish managers and employees working together in a Chinese company in Denmark.

This paper aims at an exploration of leadership in the context of pervasive organizational control, in the
form of standardized measurement systems. Measurement practices are proliferating in contemporary
organizations, with ever more aspects of both organizational and private life being monitored and
measured (Clegg & Courpasson, 2006). These systems are generally seen as an important part of organizational
control regulating and shaping both actions of organizational members, and their own self-understanding or
identity (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002). The image of the iron cage of bureaucracy, where action is tightly
regulated, has in part been exchanged for the image of soft controls, regulating values and identities rather than
behaviors and actions. Kärreman and Alvesson (2004), however, point out how these two types of control might
work in tandem, constituting a strong regulating force.
In contrast to this literature that emphasize the constraints on individual agency, the leadership literature
emphasize the powers of leaders to influence and shape organizations and organizational processes
(Yukl,2002). Leadership is commonly associated with driving and facilitating change and development. Theories
of leadership emphasize (among other things) vision, personal engagement, interpersonal relationships, and ability
to empower subordinates.
How, then, can leaders exercise their agency and enable change when faced with systems generally seen as
regulating rather than facilitating agency? It is this paradox that we wish to explore in this paper. We take the
case of employee surveys, being a common practice in western organizations, that paradoxically constitute a
standardized system aiming at change and development, and explore how these are experienced and managed by
leaders in various organizations. We wish to analyze in terms of leadership how these standardized systems migh
on the one hand constrain leadership action, and on the other hand be utilized in change related initiatives, thereby
preserving leadership agency.

The 2002 European Union (EU) directive on the energy performance of buildings
(Directive 2002/91/EC) set minimum standards on the energy performance of new
buildings and existing buildings. It also indicated that these would be subject to periodic
renovation. In some countries the directive supported policymakers in their bid for
national commitments to carbon reduction. In others, it affirmed existing commitments.
In most countries, it informed the ongoing reformulation of building regulations. This
paper explores energy related developments in building regulations for new housing in
Denmark (DK) and the United Kingdom (UK). The interest of the comparison lies in
similarities in the type of changes introduced into the regulations and differences in
industry responses.

The purpose of this study is to explore how managerial agency is constructed through three relational strategies: i. between self and institutional context, ii. between self and social context, and iii. between self and oneself. The empirical source is a database of assignments by some 270 students, participating in a one year Personal Leadership Development course within a Master of Public Governance 2009 – 2012. The context of the study is the accelerated changes in Danish Public Sector, and how these changes impact managers and their organisations under dominant management discourses, New Public Management and New Public Governance etc. The empirical analysis – initiated in this paper - explore if a žižekian approach can make sense of the managers ‘fantastic’ reliance on leadership and management tools and concepts to complete the (likewise) fantastic promises of organisational change brought in from the above.
The originality of the project (in total) stems partly from the unique and rather massive data material, partly from the introduction of žižekian concepts into leadership research.

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In CSCW, phrases such as ‘shared goal’ or ‘shared understanding’ are often used to
denote what is taken to be a defining feature of cooperative work or at least what is
thought to be an essential precondition of the orderliness without which cooperative
work in practice is impossible; that is, these terms are used in an explanatory function
[e.g., 1; 6].
To take but one example: In one of her articles on ‘situation awareness’ the muchcited
Mica Endsley posits: ‘In a smoothly functioning team, each team member shares
a common understanding of what is happening on those [Situation Awareness] elements
that are common — that is, they have shared situation awareness, which refers
to the overlap among the SA requirements of the team members.’ However, she prudently
adds, ‘The concept of shared mental models is not universally heralded’ and
‘The development of shared mental models has not been the subject of much research’
[4, pp. 48, 52 f.].
A ‘shared situation awareness’? A ‘shared mental model’? What does she mean?

In its general form, stakeholder theory posits an extension of the ecology. It claims that there are other stakes and interests than those posited by shareholder value theory (Freeman et al. 2004; Jensen and Sandström 2011), and some stakeholder theory proponents argue that the natural environment is also to be considered as a stakeholder (Driscoll and Starik 2004; Norton 2007). It is a positive claim – there are more stakes and interests – and a moral one – we should look towards more interests in order to complete the analysis. With this framing, stakeholder theory seeks to identify stakes and interests which may be difficult but in principle achievable; it also seeks to make analysis of organized activity such as (global) business into a concern with the relative power of stakes and interests. These concerns are highly relevant but they face the barrier that if stakes and interests are positively there, the analysis becomes static and will pay less attention to both the formation and to power-effects of stakes and interest.

The medical record, the collection of notes and other documents concerning a
particular patient, is a time-honored and robust institutional artifact. However,
with patients with chronic ailments that typically are treated and monitored by
multiple clinical workers, sometimes at different institutions, the medical record
is more than ‘beginning to burst’: it is beginning to fragment.
This becomes clear from our ongoing study of the coordinative practices of
clinical workers dealing with patients with ‘implantable cardioverter-defibrillators’
(ICDs), i.e., pacemakers that dub as defibrillators....

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Although waste prevention is considered the best possible waste management option in
the European waste hierarchy model, it is unclear what constitutes waste prevention. To
address this lack of clarity, this text presents an analysis of four Swedish case studies of
waste prevention: a waste management company selling waste prevention services; the
possibility offered to Swedish households to opt out of receiving unaddressed
promotional material; a car-sharing program; and a re-use center. This analysis is
informed by an action-net perspective that focuses on the way organizing emerges from
connecting actions, often prior to networking between actors. In conclusion, we stress
that waste prevention rests on the invention of new modes and patterns of interactions
that both build and disrupt the existing institutional order and underscore the
importance of physical artifacts and dedicated infrastructures for waste prevention
initiatives.